093 



THEOBALDUS. 



THEODORE. 



adaptation of the verse of Shakspere. to the standard of another age. 

 The most happy emendations of Shakspere have been produced by 

 the caution of Theobald. In his own preface he e&js, " I have not by 

 any innovation tampered with his text, out of an ostentation of en- 

 deavouring to make him speak better than the old copies have done ; " 

 and then he adds, "Where, through all the former editions, a passage 

 has laboured under flat nonsense and invincible darkness, if, by the 

 addition or alteration of a letter or two, or a transposition in the 

 pointing, I have restored to him both sense and sentiment, such cor- 

 rections, I am persuaded, will need no indulgence." All subsequent 

 editors have a debt to Theobald which has not always been acknow- 

 ledged. Johnson himself says, " I have sometimes adopted his restora- 

 tion of a comma, without inserting the panegyric in which he celebrated 

 himself for his achievement." 



There is a curious matter connected with the history of Theobald, 

 which needs here only a slight mention. In his edition of Shakspere 

 in 1728, he printed a play, ' The Double Falsehood,' as an original by 

 William Shakspere, it having been a short time before produced on 

 the stage. The play was stated to have been found in manuscript. 

 One passage, which is certainly not in the manner of Shakspere, is said 

 to have been particularly admired : 



" Strike up, my masters ; 



But touch the strings with a religious softness : 

 Teach sound to languish through the night's dull ear, 

 Till melancholy start from her lazy couch, 

 And carelessness grow convert to attention." 



The admiration was too much for the vanity of Theobald : he came 

 forward to state that he certainly had written those lines, but that all 

 the rest was genuine Shakspere. Dr. Farmer holds that ' The Double 

 Falsehood ' was not Shakspere's because the word aspect was wrongly 

 accentuated, that is, not aspect, according to the usage of Shakspere 

 and of his time ; and he holds the play to be Shirley's. It is not 

 worthy even of that writer. The probability is that Theobald had a 

 greater hand in the matter than he was subsequently willing to acknow- 

 ledge. The restless vanity and love of notoriety which, according to 

 his own account, impelled Psalmanazar to his impostures, has perhaps 

 iu nearly every case been the great motive to literary forgery. Theo- 

 bald was the author of a ' Life of Sir Walter Raleigh ; ' and he also 

 wrote the greater part of the periodical papers entitled ' The Censor,' 

 which appeared as a separate work in 1717, having been previously 

 published in Mist's ' Weekly Journal.' 



THEOBALDUS, a bishop who probably lived in France, and whose 

 name is sometims written TBBALDUS or TIBALDUS, the reputed author 

 of a didactic and theological poem entitled 'Physiologus de Naturis 

 Duodecirn Animalium.' It is written in hexameter, sapphic, and other 

 kinds of verse, and describes first some one or more of the natural 

 habits of twelve different animals, and then draws from each some 

 moral and religious reflections. The twelve animals chosen are the 

 lion, eagle, serpent, ant, fox, stag, spider, whale, siren and centaur, 

 elephant, dove, aud panther ; and the whole poem appears to be 

 borrowed in a great measure from the little work in prose by Epipha- 

 nius on the same subject. With respect to the author of the poem, 

 as it is found in a Paris manuscript of the 13th century, con- 

 taining the works of Hildebert, archbishop of Tours (who lived in the 

 12th century), and has also been ascribed to Hildebert himself, he 

 may be supposed to have lived some time in the 12th century, or 

 even as early as the llth, if he is the person meant in an epitaph 

 on ' Magister Theobaldus Dervensis,' written by Hildebert. (Hildebert, 

 'Opera,' p. 1322, edit. Beaugendre). The first edition of this work to 

 which a date is attached is that of Antwerp, 4to, 1482, but five others 

 are enumerated by Choulant (' Handbuch der Biicherkunde fur die 

 Aeltere Medicin,') which were probably printed before this year. The 

 last edition, in a separate form, was published at Leipzig, 4to, 1510 ; 

 but it is inserted in ' Hildeberti Cenomanensis Episcopi, Turonensis 

 Archiepiscopi, Opera,' edit. Ant. Beaugendre, Paris, fol., 1708, and 

 erroneously attributed to Hildebert. The ' Procomium ' and the 

 chapter ' De Elephante ' are inserted by Freytag in the ' Analecta 

 Litteraria de Libris Rarioribus,' Lips., 8vo, 1752. In some of 

 the old editions there is appended to the poem a theological com- 

 mentary, written in the style of the scholastic philosophy of the 

 middle ages : the author is unknown, but it was not composed by 

 Theobaldus himself. (Choulant, loco cit.) 



THEO'CRITUS was a son of Simichidas, or, according to others, or 

 Praxagoras and Philinna. He was a native of Syracuse, where he 

 also spent the greater part of his life. He is said to have been con- 

 nected with Pliiletas of Cos and Asclepiades of Samos, and to have 

 been their pupil, whence we may infer that he visited these island?. 

 He was on very intimate terms with Aratus the poet, and it is highly 

 probable that he formed this acquaintance in the island of Cos. 

 (Wiistemann, ' Argument, ad Theocrit. Idyll.,' vii.) His exact period 

 is not known, and we can only say that he lived in the reign of Ptole- 

 mrcus, the son of Lagus, and Ptolemseus Philadelphus, and that the 

 time of his greatest reputation was about B.C. 277. Some years 

 before this time, probably about B.C. 284, he had visited Alexandria, 

 and the influence of the court of that city is manifest in several of his 

 poems. It has further been supposed that he spent some time at 

 Croton in Southern Italy, because the scene of three of his poems is 



BIOG. DIV. VOL. V. 



laid in that place. Beyond these circumstances, which are little moro 

 than probabilities, we know nothing of the life of Theocritus. 



The Alexandrine grammarians valued the works of Theocritus very 

 highly, and assigned to him the second place in the pleiad of the 

 seven miscellaneous poets, which comprised Lycophron, Theocritus, 

 Callimachus, Aratiw, Apollonius Rhodius, Nicander, and one Homer, 

 the son of Moero of Byzantium. Several Qreek grammarians also wrote 

 commentaries on his works, some fragments of which are still extant 

 in the scholia on his poems. There is extant by Theocritus ft collec- 

 tion of various poems, which are written in what the Greek gram- 

 marians call the new Doric dialect, which is softer than the old Doric, 

 and the softness of this new Doric is still increased in the poems of 

 Theocritus by the admixture of epic and Ionic or Alolic forms. The 

 particular species of poetry by which he has acquired most celebrity 

 are the Bucolics (n&ri &ovKo\ut). This pastoral poetry was very 

 popular in Sicily, and having been originally cultivated by shepherds 

 and rustics, was raised to a really artistic rank by several poets before 

 Theocritus. He however brought this kind of poetry to perfection, 

 and the ancient critics regard him as the model of bucolic poetry, and 

 Virgil for this reason calls this poetry Syracusan (' Eclog.,' vi. 1). But 

 the number of real bucolic poems still extant in the collection which 

 bears the vague name of Idyls (flSv\\ta), is only ten ; the remaining 

 twenty poems are either epic poems (such as idyl xiii., xxii., xxiv., and 

 xxv.), or imitations of mimes (such as idyl ii. and xv.j, or are of a 

 mixed nature, and belong either to the lyric kind, or are mere exer- 

 cises of a poetical imagination. Nine of these poems, xii., xvil, xviil, 

 xix., xx., xxvi., xxvii., xxix., and xxx., and some portions of others, 

 have been considered by modern critics not to be the work of Theo- 

 critus : as to some there can be no doubt that they are spurious, 

 though they are not without great poetical merit, if we except idyl 

 xxx. Besides these thirty idyls, there is a fragment of one poem 

 called ' Berenice,' and twenty-two epigrams, which are ascribed to 

 Theocritus. 



All the poems which are genuine productions of Theocritus show 

 him to have been a perfect master of his art. His power over the 

 language is not less wonderful than his taste for the simple beauties 

 of nature, and the skill with which he handled his subjects. His 

 poems are indeed founded upon the national shepherd songs of Sicily 

 in the form of dialogues, but he has added features of his own, and 

 idealised his persons, without depriving them of their natural sim- 

 plicity. We do not know whether Theocritus himself ever published 

 a collection of his poems, but from an epigram in the ' Anthologia 

 Graeca ' (ix., n. 205), we might rather suppose that the collection was 

 made by Artemidorus, the author of that epigram. It is however a 

 curious fact that none of the manuscripts of Theocritus contain all 

 the poems which are published in our modem printed editions under 

 his name. The editio princeps, which appeared at Milan in 1493, 

 folio, only contains eighteen idyls of Theocritus, with the works of 

 Hesiod and Isocrates. The most important among the subsequent 

 editions are those of J. J. Reiske, with a Latin translation, the Greek 

 scholia and notes, 2 vols. 4to, Leipzig, 1765 ; Thomas Warton, with 

 additional scholia and notes, 2 vols. 4to, Oxford, 1770 ; Valckenaer, 

 Leyden, 1779 and 1781. The edition of Valckenaer, which also 

 contains the poems of Bion and Moschus, is still valuable. In 1773 

 Valckenaer had published an excellent edition of select idyls of Theo- 

 critus. His complete edition was reprinted at Berlin, 1810, in 2 vols. 

 8vo, with additional notes by Brunck and Troup. After these 

 followed the editions of Schaefer, folio, Leipzig, 1811 ; Kiessling, 

 Leipzig, 1819; and J. Geel, 8vo, Amsterdam, 1821. An edition, 

 which is very useful to students, is by E. F. Wiistemann, Gotha and 

 Erfurdt, in one vol. 8vo, 1830; the introductory essay gives a good 

 account of the literature of Theocritus. There are also editions of 

 Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus, by Lehrs and Du'bner, Imp. 8vo, 

 Paris, 1846, and by Meineke, 8vo, Berlin, 1856. The works of Theo- 

 critus have been translated into all the languages of modern Europe. 

 There is an English translation by Creech, 8vo, 1681, &c.; by Fawkes, 

 8vo, 1767, and a translation, including Bion and Moschus, by Polwhele, 

 4to, 1786, and in 2 vols, 12mo, 1811. The best French translation is 

 that of J. B. Gail, with explanatory and critical notes, 3 vols. 4to, 

 Paris, 1808. The best German translations are those of J. H. Yoss, 

 8vo, Tubingen, 1808; and Witter, 8vo, Hildburghausen, 1819. 



(Respecting the character of the poems of Theocritus, see Eichstiidt, 

 Adumbratio Qucestionis de Carminum Theocriteorum ad Genera sua 

 Revocatorum Indole ac Virtutibus, 4to, Lipsise, 1793; and Reiuhold, 

 De Theocriti Carminibus Genuinis et Supposititiis, 8vo, Jena, 1819.) 



THEODORE, or THEODORUS, of Mopsuestia, a learned bishop of 

 the Oriental church. He was descended from a rich and distinguished 

 family at Antioch, and was the brother of Polychronius, who became 

 bishop of Apamea. He studied rhetoric, together with his friend John 

 Chrysostom, under Libanius, who resided at Antioch from toe year 

 A.D. 354. His teacher of philosophy was Andragathus. After having 

 finished his studies, he intended to marry a lady of Antioch (about 

 369); but his friend Chrysostom, who was then a monk, persuaded 

 him to choose the monastic life. Theodore was for some time a priest 

 at Antioch, and afterwards bishop of Mopsuestia, an ancient town of 

 Cilicia (394). In the same year he was present at the council of 

 Constantinople. He died in 429, at a very advanced age, and after 

 he had discharged his episcopal functions during thirty-five years, 



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